


De Døde Kalder

by eirabach



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War I, Boy Squad, Conscription, Historical Inaccuracy, I'm sorry Norway, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lighthouses, M/M, Mental Health Issues, My grasp of neutrality is worse than the British governments, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Religious Fanaticism, Shipwrecks, Smut, Threats of Violence, as an actual squad, fishing?, period atypical Magnus Fossbakken
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:14:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: The summer of 1914 was the warmest summer Isak could remember.Sitting in the back of a half-rotten herring boat bound to god-knows-where, he's starting to think it might also have been his last.
Relationships: Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen, Mahdi Disi/Light Artillery
Comments: 87
Kudos: 54





	1. To the Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into SKAM fandom! Eek!
> 
> Now, to be entirely straight with you all - I am well aware that the historical facts around Norwegian neutrality in the First World War allow for almost none of this to happen but hey -- in another universe, right? Apologies to any Norwegian historians reading this, please feel free to hit me up to discuss literally *any other* aspect of WWI than the one I've chosen to write this around. 
> 
> I know. I know. Writers, eh?
> 
> All gratitude to HedwigsTalons and Hodgeheg002 for their betaing help, all the remaining nonsense is my own fault.
> 
> Epigraph from 'Little Beast' by Richard Siken. Of course.

* * *

_History repeats itself. Somebody says this._

_History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop,_

_over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters._

_History is a little man in a brown suit_

_trying to define a room he is outside of._

_I know history. There are many names in history_

_but none of them are ours._

* * *

**_Onsdag 11. November 1914._ **

The patched wooden hull of the ferry shrieks as she heaves to port, the ocean dark and roiling at her edges like night after day. Isak clings to the splintered deck, bile sharp in his mouth and his future crumbling like the edges of his fingernails. Somewhere over the roar of the storm he hears the calls of the ferrymen as they fight water and weather, but he’s incapable of seeing anything beyond the grey on grey, feels nothing but the burn of salt against raw skin, the rough wool of an overcoat pressed against his cheek.

They haven't spoken since they'd met on the dock at Nesna, where they'd exchanged just the barest of pleasantries between strangers. It’s all they are to each other after all, four strangers thrown aboard some half rotten herring skiff in a maelstrom of none of their making with the promise-cum-warning hanging over each of them: _This is it, now. This is everything_. The cramped quarters of the Nordlandsbåt mean the four of them are pressed tightly against each other in the stern, a grey-green lump of humanity tossed wildly upon a cruel sea. The smallest of them, a swarthy skinned boy with wide, bright eyes under thick brows, curls his fist around Isak’s collar, his knuckles warm against the nape of his neck, and leans down, over, until he can press his mouth almost against Isak’s ear, his voice an unsteady rumble that Isak feels in his bones.

“Keep an eye on the horizon, look out for the light. It will help.”

Isak manages a weak sort of wince that the other boy hopefully takes as agreement and attempts to force his salt-sticky eyes open. 

He has never been much of one for the ocean.

He’d spent his childhood, like so many of his friends, dipping summer warm toes into the chilly fjord and watching the great steam and sail ships kicking up their wakes as they plied their trade. Once, more years ago than he cares to think about now, he’d watched with his father’s hand tight on his shoulder and a certainty in his heart and soul. Had thought, believed, _insisted_ that he was born to it, this way of life, the salt and the ferocity and the force of it. Not like his father, concerned only with his ledgers and his accounts, but like his grandfather -- that great legendary sea captain whose portrait had hung above their mantle for all his earliest years, whose heroics had inspired many a nursery bedtime tale.

But Isak had grown, and Isak had found that he may not be anything, _nothing, nothing at all_ , like his father, but nor is he the heir to his grandfather’s story. Nor is he anything like any of the other boys he knows -- not really. Not inside.

All, perhaps, except one. One boy who’d met his eyes across the library and smiled, all teeth and dimples and like he meant it and -- perhaps he had, then. Perhaps Isak ought to hold on to that more than he does -- the beginning, more than the ending. The promise, more than the punishment. Perhaps he does, but no one needs to know that. No one needs to know how he tastes dust when he licks his lips, how the scent of ink sends shivers down his spine. Least of all himself.

It’s strange to think of it now, here, on this rickety ferry with strange boys tucked up all around him and the old gods stirring at the depths, but perhaps -- perhaps that’s why he does. The otherworldly heat of the summer he’s left behind him and the fire that had consumed him whole, they both feel like dreams here in this nightmare place. Secrets that he holds so close to his heart that even he can barely believe they could be true.

Sometimes it feels that, like Norway herself, Isak had tasted freedom only for the world to become his cage.

Sometimes, he wonders if it isn’t for the best.

He feels the sigh of his closest companion before his eyes adjust to the unremitting dusk, and the other boy’s relief seems to spread, oil on water, amongst them all. Even the ferrymen’s voices seem calmer, their strange accents less alarming as the sea settles and the bright light ahead cuts through the darkness. They guide the boat into a natural harbour hewn from the cliff face, and in the shelter they provide Isak is able to look up, up, _up_ , to where the Træna light flashes.

This is it then.

This is war.

\---

The summer of 1914 had been the warmest summer Isak could remember. 

The waters of the Oslofjord had lain bright and still under a cloudless cerulean sky while the docks bustled with ships loaded heavily with fish and copper bound for the continent. He'd sat in the park with sweat prickling beneath his collar and watched them sail out into the ocean, some of them bearing his father's name and all of them bound for something greater. 

All free to go wherever their captains chose to take them, bound only to the Valtersens by contract, not loyalty.

Isak couldn't imagine anyone pledging fealty to his father by choice.

Only his last two semesters of university, this one glorious summer, had lain between him and his own freedom. Lain softly upon him like the promise he'd made himself -- that one day he'd leave Kristiania and the docks behind. Leave his father and his name and his endless expectations that Isak could never hope to meet. Never.

His heart -- his unsteady, liar's heart -- had settled in the summer heat and Isak had allowed himself to breathe. Allowed himself a moment or two to hope for that distant dream of a life to call his own.

That summer it had felt as though the whole nation were waiting with him with baited breath for its own future to begin. A future still so newly won and so much more the precious for it. Norway, the infant of Europe, fresh faced and beautiful and ready -- so ready -- for the world to turn her face towards her calm waters.

By August the sun was at its height, and the world had taken a breath. 

And screamed.

And now he's here.

The coastline forms uneven rocky steps where the sea has battered the cliff face into submission, and the ferrymen are quick to tie up alongside them, the boxes of supplies and ammunition that they’ve brought over from the mainland thrown overboard to land on the jagged little dockside with the sort of precision borne of years of practice. Isak is less steady, and for a moment he envisages an ignoble, ugly death crushed between the ferry and the rocks, his body left to bob in the light’s flicker -- unknown, uncared for, and unmissed.

His closest companion from the ferry is at his elbow though, his teeth flashing as he steadies Isak with a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Not what you signed up for, Sir?”

Isak presses his side against the cliffs, as far from the water as he can manage, and grimaces.

“I’m a Master Mariner, as it happens.”

The other boy’s smile spreads until it’s a grin, wide and delightful, and Isak’s heart skips a beat. “I can tell.”

“All right, you’re on your own!” the ferrymaster calls, the final trunks unloaded and promptly claimed by the blond member of their garrison who sits heavily down on one and groans miserably. “The keeper won’t be down to greet you in this storm, so you’d best head up. I hear gunpowder doesn’t do so well in the wet!”

He’s wrapped in more layers than Isak can possibly count, only his eyes, dark and sharp, showing from beneath his wide brimmed hat, but there’s something in his tone -- teasing, perhaps, like this is a _game_ to him -- that has Isak scowling and pushing back off the cliff.

“You ought to help us,” he says, hisses, and the ferrymaster’s sharp eyes glitter like flints. “For your country -- you ought to assist your country! Norway is in danger and --”

He laughs, sharper than even his eyes, and turns back toward the sea, toward the heaving, hideous passage they’ve just traversed. “Sharp words for a soft boy! What do they feed you in Kristiania?"

"I'm soft?" Isak scoffs. "I'm here aren't I? I'm doing my duty."

"Oh? Let me tell you about _my_ duty. I’ve delivered four boys to the middle of nowhere, damp powder and no waterproofs, and for what? Shall I go home to my sister? Tell her not to worry because the government has sent Norway's best to save her?” He scoffs. The blond looks up at him, blinking rain from his eyes, and the ferrymaster shakes his head. Pitying. Isak’s blood runs hot. “If that's the case my country has greater worries, don’t you think?”

They watch them leave in silence, the ferry struggling against the wind to make the open straits, and stay there, the four of them, watching until the boat’s lamps have disappeared into the squall. 

The blond, a round faced boy with pale eyes and ruddy cheeks, folds his arms over his chest and hops slightly from foot to foot. “Now what? What are we supposed to do?”

Their fourth, his opposite, dark where he’s fair, lean where the blond still runs to baby fat, bobs down to pull at the rope handle of the closest trunk before looking up, his focus drifting past Isak and up the rugged natural staircase before them.

“Faen, this is going to be _awful_.” 

\---

It is.

The ropes burn their icy hands as they struggle with their trunks and equipment, and the steps are slippery and rugged under foot. It strikes Isak as a sort of miracle that they manage to make five or six trips each without one or the other of them falling to their death and taking the others with them, though exactly what type of god would choose to inhabit a place like this he hasn’t the faintest idea.

It’s on his third trip up the rock face that he finds out.

The storm is dying down, the wind less biting and the rain becoming more of a gentle patter, by the time Isak drops his end of the artillery gun down. Here the land is softly undulating, the grass at their feet the same sort of greyish muddy green as their sodden uniforms, and the blond -- _Magnus_ , as he’s introduced himself halfway up their first climb, one hand held awkwardly out over the box of ammunition between them -- has abandoned his end of the gun and darted away to shelter under the ramshackle eaves of one of the many wooden shacks that litter the island’s peak.

Behind them the great red tower of the light looms, the steady rhythmic flash of its single eye casting strange shadows over the muddy scrub below. Isak can hear the other two men -- Vasquez and Disi, whose introductions suggest they at least grasp the concept of military seniority in _theory_ \-- huffing and puffing their way to the peak with the gun’s base, but even with the distant sound of their curses and Magnus’s sulky presence he feels strangely settled here in this lonely, cursed place. 

Perhaps it suits him, he thinks, and his stomach clenches. Perhaps he shouldn’t think on that too closely. 

“Do you think it’s going to be like this _all_ the time?” Magnus moans, pulling his forage cap off and wringing it out. “I’m _soaking_.”

“You won’t get any drier until we’re done,” Isak says. “So come on, help me.”

Magnus grimaces. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to _do_ with that thing. Do you know? Is that why they gave you that?” He gestures vaguely in the direction of Isak’s shoulder where the pips denoting his seniority must surely be rusting by now. “Did they tell you where the rations are too? I’m _starved_.”

Isak quirks an eyebrow. “You can eat later, _Private_.” 

Magnus’s shoulders slump. “I should have known you were going to be a hard ass.”

“A what?” 

“A _hard ass_ ,” he speaks in English and it makes Isak’s head spin. “Strict, you know? That must be why they put you out here.”

“Because I’m a --” Isak struggles to curl his mouth around the unfamiliar words, “ _hard ass_?”

Magnus shrugs, but lopes over to grab his end of the gun’s barrel. “Or not. Did you fail training? Did you fuck some girl you shouldn’t? There must be something wrong with you to end up out here. Look at this place.”

The light flashes over Magnus’s face, and Isak is briefly, painfully thankful for the shadow it leaves him in.

 _You know there’s something wrong with you_.

“You know that’s no way to talk about a man’s home.”

The gun drops to the ground with a terrible clatter, Isak’s already chilled hands freezing as it slips through them. And the voice -- the low, _beautiful_ , voice -- laughs. For a moment Isak just focuses on the way Magnus’s eyes widen, but then his body is turning toward the sound, a moth drawn to a flame.

And what a flame.

Isak has very little imagination, and such as he has he rarely allows himself to indulge in. It wouldn’t be an advantage, not to a man like him, a man who must stick to facts and certainties and not allow his mind to wonder beyond them. He would be lying if he admitted to having imagined much of anything about this place, but even if he had, even in his wildest, most secret dreams, he could never have begun to imagine _him_.

This lighthouse keeper is no wind worn, storm battered creature. His face is smooth, unblemished, barely any older than Isak himself, the rain running down pink cheeks, dripping from long, golden lashes, and Magnus is garbling something, some half-stuttered apology, but the keeper’s eyes are summer blue and fixed, solid and certain and _frightening_ , on Isak’s. 

“Welcome,” he says. His tongue catches on the word as though he barely knows it, and Isak tightens his shoulders against the shudder in his blood, “to the end of the world.”


	2. The Light Between Oceans

Vasquez and Magnus --  _ Fossbakken _ , officially, though he shows no interest in responding to it no matter how loudly Isak bellows -- mount the gun on the isle’s western peak. Isak isn’t convinced that the spray won’t rust it long before any agent of chaos chooses this most unlikely route of invasion, but it’s of no matter. One single mortar would barely repel a passing herring boat. They’re not here to prevent the inevitable, only to report it to those who may have the wherewithal to save them.

The keeper,  _ Bech Næsheim  _ apparently, though Isak is determined not to care, is watching as Disi and Isak set up the long, flexible aerial beside the tower, Isak on his knees as he attempts to steady the base against the onslaught of the wind and Disi darting in and out of the nearest shack with armfuls of wiring that he buries as best he can in the thin soil. Isak curls his fingers against the sharp edges of shale before daring to look up. 

“I give it a night,” says Bech Næshiem, rather cheerfully, Isak thinks, for a man whose home has just become part of the last line of defence for Helgeland sovereignty. 

“I’ve been trained --” Isak begins, but he’s cut off with a laugh.

“Oh, I’m certain you have,  _ Sekondløitnant _ , but I assure you whatever they warned you about in Kristiania, you’ve no idea what awaits you out here.”

_I had no idea about_ you _,_ Isak thinks, and it’s followed by a horrible moment where he fears he may have said so out loud because Bech Næsheim’s eyes have grown a little wider, a little darker, the ground beneath Isak’s knees a little less steady.

None of this is what he’d expected.

Luckily Vasquez, he’s starting to realise, might just be his own personal hero.

“All done up there, Sir,” he says, and if he notices any evidence of the burning heat in Isak’s cheeks he’s either kind enough or professional enough to turn a blind eye. “Do you want me to take Fossbakken and set up the bivouacks?”

Isak scrabbles to his feet, more grateful than he cares to admit that Vasquez keeps his eyes fixed somewhere slightly over his shoulder and his hands at his sides.

“Yes, I --” he narrows his eyes against the wind, and turns as much toward Bech Naeshiem as he can while still keeping some modicum of dignity. “We will take over the Easternmost shelter, take any of your belongings and --”

“Is this how things will be, then?” Isak’s eyes snap up to Bech Næsheim’s. He expects to see sullenness, displeasure, after all they’ve been warned that the people of Nordland are unlikely to look all too kindly on them, city boys with guns and orders. That they may see their presence as more threat than protection. But Bech Næsheim, he can already tell, is determined to confound every single expectation Isak has ever dared to hold. He  _ beams _ , and it’s as though every last stormcloud scatters into the ether. “So many formalities on such a small island,  _ Sir _ ?” he drawls the last word, and Isak tries not to gasp.

He doesn’t mean it, not like that, not -- 

_ Not now, not here, not now, not  _ ever.

“You’re a civilian so --”

Bech Næsheim laughs, and though his smile doesn’t dim in the least Isak hears it crack, turn bitter on the exhale.

“And you’re, what, nineteen, twenty? They drag boys from school, force them into uniforms and we lowly citizens are to bow to them?” From the corner of his eye, Isak sees Vasquez shifting from foot to foot, Magnus and Disi now alongside him, silent and awkward. Bech Næsheim shakes his head. 

Isak forces his shoulders back, pulls himself to his full height. Bech Næsheim is still taller than him, taller than any man of Isak’s acquaintance, but this is Isak’s squad. Isak’s position. Isak’s  _ authority _ that he must protect at all costs because the  _ alternative --  _ the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. He opens his mouth. Bech Næsheim beats him to it.

“Come,” he says, and he’s addressing all of them but his eyes are still burning into Isak’s even as he reaches over to scoop up an armful of the waxed gabardine sheets they are expected to use to make their temporary beds, “I’m sure I have enough room for all of you.” He winks, badly, and Isak’s heart skips, stutters, lunges after him as he turns toward the lighthouse. “Egos and all.”

\---

The building from which the light’s tower rises is far larger and more solidly built than any of the little shacks Isak has seen outside. Two stories high, and with stone walls thick enough to dull the ocean’s roar into something more muted, softer, it has the feel of permanency that the rest of this place with its windshear weak huts and scrubby vegetation, sorely lacks. Even the island itself feels on edge, as though the ocean is only ever one wave away from sweeping it from existence all together. Isak wonders, idly enough to be innocent, if Bech Næsheim himself takes more after building or the island. 

He doesn’t ask -- he’s too tired and cold for philosophy, and anyway he’s too busy watching the pull of muscles in Bech Næsheim’s back as he shucks his greatcoat. He drops their groundsheets in a narrow hallway alongside several sets of grubby yellow wet weather gear and a single, lonely gumboot before disappearing through an open doorway to his right. Isak pauses, hoping for enough time to pull himself away from the edge of whatever disastrous fantasy he’s at risk of being swept away by, only to be knocked forward over the threshold, Magnus tripping in on his heels and looking around the lighthouse’s kitchen like a child taking their first steps inside the royal palace.

“I’ve never been in a lighthouse before! This is sure something! Do you live here? Is it yours? Is this your house?”

Bech Næsheim drops a copper kettle onto the hearth, drops his coat over a nearby clotheshorse, then inclines his head in Magnus’s direction.

“She is mine, or, at least, I am hers.” 

Disi grins, his teeth the brightest thing in the room. “She’s a woman?”

“The lamp?” Bech Naesheim’s tongue peeks out of the corner of his mouth. Isak grinds his teeth. “She’s contrary enough.”

Disi and Vasquez both laugh, and the three of them appear to glow in the warmth of the hearth’s reflected light. It reminds Isak of one of the triptychs in the church his mother frequents, the three saints caught up in the worship of a God that Isak has never quite been able to believe in and he left aside, a sinner, abandoned. With Magnus. He’s not yet sure whether being left in such company is any better than being entirely alone.

“Coffee?” Bech Næsheim is asking, and it takes Isak a moment to realise that he’s addressing him. “You must be cold, and we ought to get to know one another a little. Who knows how long we will be living in a  _ kollectiv,  _ hmm?”

“We’re not --”

“Oh, no. We’ll be home for Christmas, surely?” Magnus says brightly, interrupting whatever excuse Isak might have been able to dredge up as to why he shouldn’t spend a second longer in Bech Næsheim’s company than he’s obligated to by law. “My father says the Kaiser --”

“The Kaiser is a man used to getting his own way,” Vasquez says, shaking his head. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I wouldn’t expect to see Saint Lucy’s light at home, not this year at least.”

“So long as he keeps himself to himself.” Disi leans his rifle up against the kitchen wall, eyeing it with a mixture of trepidation and glee. “I’ve no desire to fight, but if he comes --”

“I doubt,” Isak says, a little sharper than he needs to, “that Kaiser Willhelm is likely to come personally rowing up the fjord, Disi. And even if he  _ did _ I don’t think you’d have much hope of pinning him to the end of your bayonet.”

“Oh,” Bech Næsheim says, and although Isak hasn’t given permission he sets out two metal cups and three high sided bowls out on the rickety wooden table before pouring the thick, dark coffee from the kettle into them. “You don’t need to spoil all of our fun.”

“This isn’t  _ fun _ ,” Isak snaps. 

Bech Naeshiem picks up one of the cups, steps closer, closer, presses it into Isak’s hand until his fingers curl around it, burn and all.

“No,” he says, and his expression is solemn enough now but to Isak his eyes seem to hold universes in their depths. “Not yet.”

\---

Isak sits at the table, whether unable or unwilling to refuse the offered coffee he doesn't know, and stares at their feet. Stares down at the muddy boots leaving marks on the worn rag rug and the soft, bright wool of Bech Næsheim's mismatched socks. 

Magnus is laughing.

His laugh is wild and a little dirty, a laugh Isak recognises from common rooms and dining rooms and the beds around his own in the hour after lights out. Those dark hours where the thoughts of the boys in his dormitory would turn toward the curve of the chambermaid's hips, the French teacher's limp wrists, and Isak would screw his eyes shut and fake sleep until his jaw ached.

Isak had never perfected that laugh. He'd tried, forced words he couldn't mean through unwilling lips, practiced his leer in the mirror until he could make the chambermaid blush at will. Until the other boys laughed along with him.  _ One of them _ .

He will never be one of them.

"-- sewed him right into his bed, the officer was  _ screaming _ , I swear I --"

Someone hisses a  _ hush _ , and Isak watches as one booted foot kicks out at another.

"Oh." Isak swears he can hear the sound of Magnus's swallow. Feel the burn of four pairs of eyes on him. "Sorry, Sir, I didn't mean --"

Isak looks up, and the nervous twist of Magnus's mouth makes his palms itch. He doesn’t mean to upset him -- he doesn’t know what he means, only that his skin is too tight and Magnus is too bright and Bech Næshiem is too close and Isak is too broken, too ruined, to pretend anymore.

"It's quite alright, Fossbakken," he manages. It isn’t, of course. It never is.

If anything, Magnus's mouth curls even further into distress and there's a long, heavy pause where all Isak can hear is the hiss of the hearth and the labour of his own lungs.

He's terrible at this. He'd known he would be, right from the moment he was plucked from the ranks of bright-eyed conscripts and thrown into officer training. He's too awkward, too uncomfortable in his own skin, too desperate not to be seen for who, for  _ what _ , he is. Vasquez should be the officer here. Vasquez with his knowing eyebrows and the understanding tilt of his head.

"Even."

Isak's head snaps around. "What?"

Bech Næshiem is watching him from under hooded lids, his long fingers curled around his coffee bowl.

"My name. The one my mother gave me. It's Even. And if I'm to have your company in my home -- until Christmas or beyond -- I'd prefer you to use it."

Isak wracks his memory for any moment where he's let Bech Næshiem's name slip, terror prickling at his throat at the very thought of it -- of letting something else slip out along with it, something like that spark of desire he knows is pulling at the muscles in his jaw. 

Something dangerous, destructive. Desperate.

"I haven't said anything?" It's not much of a denial if a denial is what it is at all, and it only makes Bech Næshiem's eyes narrow further; only makes Isak's cheeks burn as the silence drags out behind it.

"Yes," he says. "I know."

"Does it matter?" Magnus wonders. "There's no one else here but us, we can call each other whatever we choose, right?"

"I don't think that's how the army works," Disi says, not unkindly. "Second Lieutenant Valtersen is our senior officer and --"

Isak breathes a sigh of relief. Not because he has any especial desire to be  _ Sir _ , and none at all to be  _ Valtersen _ , but because -- because --

Because Bech Næshiem is still watching him over the rim of his bowl, the tip of his tongue visible between his teeth. Because there are  _ rules _ and  _ formalities _ and --

"I don't care much for the army's rules." 

Isak turns, aghast, to Vasquez as he leans back in his chair. The betrayal is sharper than it ought to be coming from a boy he's known less than a day.

"They can make me join," he says with a shrug of his shoulders, "but they can't force me to obey. You’re not better than me." He nods at Isak who ought to be enraged merely on behalf of his rank, but really only agrees. “And I’m not better than you. We’re only men, equal in the sight of god and all that.”

There’s nothing Isak can say to that. God turned his back on him many years ago, after all. Disi must sense something of his discomfort, because he’s quick to turn the tack of Vasquez’s thoughts back to their roots.

"You didn't want to join up?" 

Vasquez pulls a face. "Not even a bit. You did?" 

"Better than the alternative for a man like me," Disi says casually, as though this is no secret for him; no deep rooted terror displayed in the steady way he lifts his mug to his lips. "There's not so much decent work out there when your face stands out like mine."

Something in Isak's chest tightens uncomfortably. He's watched enough of the business of the docks to know that those who ply their trade there have long memories, memories that stretch back to when men like Disi were cargo, not crewmate, and though he doesn't know Disi, has never seen  _ him _ beaten and jeered at, he's seen quite enough.

So he makes a choice.

"Isak." He holds his hand out to Disi first, until the slow curl of the other man's smile releases the tension in his chest.

"Mahdi."

"Jonas." Vasquez -- Jonas -- actually leans over to slap Isak on the shoulder before doing the same to Mahdi. "I've a little experience in not fitting in. It was probably this or prison for me, too."

"What? You murder someone?" Magnus's mouth hangs open. "Oh my god, did you? This is like one of those books you know? Holmes and Watson and --"

"No, faen," Jonas laughs. "No. I objected. On the grounds I  _ don't _ want to kill my fellow man."

Mahdi looks almost as shocked as Isak feels. He knows about the so called conscientious objectors, those who refuse their countries call for some greater love -- that of God, or their own hide. He can't quite reconcile Vasquez's steadying presence with his father's tales of pathetic cowardice.

Magnus wrinkles his nose up. "You a priest or something?"

Jonas's eyebrows dance as though they have a life of their own. "Far from."

"So there we have it." And then it's Even's hand held out towards Isak. Steady. Large. Dark smuts over his knuckles and half healed burns shining pink in the gaslights. "We've reached an entente cordiale, wouldn't you say, Sir?"

And Isak -- Isak feels every twitch of his muscles as he raises his own hand. Concentrates on the prickling heat of anticipation as he flexes his fingers. The all consuming warmth of  _ Even's _ hand in his.

"Isak," he says again, watches the way Even's lips move to copy him -- the letters silent but the thrill no less for that. "You can call me Isak."

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love to Hodge and Hedwig for the beta help and to the SKAM big bang server for generally making me feel super welcome in this fandom! Thank you <3


	3. Fire by Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorchas made this gorgeous [gifset](https://sorchas.tumblr.com/post/641964231504330752/de-d%C3%B8de-kalder-by-eirabach-ao3) for this nonsense, thank you so very much darling I love it to pieces <3

Even has Mahdi take first watch.

It's a surprise on two fronts, firstly that  _ taking watch _ is something they're expected to do at all -- a task they've neither been prepared for nor warned regarding -- and secondly that he's chosen  _ Mahdi,  _ who of all of them is the one who eyes the curving metal staircase that leads to the light with ill concealed dread. It’s sharply turned and steep enough that it’s more of a ladder than anything else, and so narrow that Isak isn’t sure how Bech -- Even -- manages to contort himself up and down it. 

Mahdi is a much smaller man, but even so. "I can't carry my gun up there?"

Even, already four rungs up, looks down at him in consternation.

"Why would you need a gun? You can trim the wick with a pen knife, there's no need to shoot it."

Mahdi turns wide eyes on Isak, who shuffles on the spot before turning his own eyes up to Even.

"Technically," he begins, "it's a court martial offence to abandon your weapon on the front line."

"Fortunate, then, that you're here instead. Come on."

He scales the tower with practiced ease, and with a sideways glance and shrug Mahdi thrusts his rifle at Isak and begins to heave himself up after him.

"Make yourselves comfortable!" Even calls down before he's high enough that the howling, echoing wind will carry his words away. "I'll wake you for second shift!"

Isak watches until he's swung his long legs up through the hatchway at the top, then turns to see Jonas watching him with those all too knowing eyes.

"Not what any of us signed up for then," he says.

"You don't sound disappointed."

Jonas’s eyebrows twitch. "You're surprised?"

"Not in the least." Isak looks past Jonas and out into the gloam. "Where's Magnus?"

"Gone to check the radiotelegraph. That shed isn't as weather proof as we might hope for and we are running on the edge of our transmission range as it is."

Isak thinks Jonas would have likely excelled in the officers corps. He speaks with the easy authority Isak longs to possess, and even his posture speaks of a man settled in his own skin, a man who knows just enough of the world to reject it's demands out of hand as it suits.

"Right." Isak passes Mahdi's rifle into his left hand, and turns back toward the faint gaslit glow of the keeper's house door. "Right."

He leaves Jonas and the newly returned Magnus to prod at the hearth, their ration bags open on the table as they consider the least awful menu for their evening sustenance. And -- armfuls of sweaty, stinking fabric in hand -- sets off to find somewhere to set up some form of camp.

The house has thick walls, necessarily solidly built against the ever present threat of storms, but the windows are filled with the thin, blown glass of Kristiania's older houses and they rattle alarmingly against every gust as Isak tiptoes through the darkened building. It takes time for his eyes to adjust. It's hardly much past 3pm but the night barely breaks this far north, and the lingering storm lies like a heavy blanket between the island and whatever dregs of daylight may remain. Eventually it becomes too much, and he abandons his would-be bedding for the stub of candle he finds lying on a narrow sideboard at the base of a darkened stairwell. He strikes the flint box on the wall and watches as the black shadows shudder out of the flame's reach.

In the distance he hears a wail of misery from Magnus. He's probably attempted the hard tack without an overnight soaking, and will now be nursing a toothache for perhaps the entirety of the war. Isak cringes in sympathy, and takes the first step up into the dark.

The first thing he notices is that the private quarters are not as untidy as he’d expected them to be. His own rooms at University had been constantly littered with the academic debris that Isak tended to shed behind him everywhere he went. Notes, hastily scrawled in lectures he vaguely remembers, lying blotted and dog eared between the pages of books liberated from under the anatomy professor’s nose at every opportunity. Even the best efforts of the Army had failed to turn him into the model conscript, never mind the ideal officer. His bunk was never squared as neatly as that of his dorm mates, the brim of his forage cap never bent quite right.

Even, as a man alone with no one to judge, assist, or punish him, could easily be expected to live the life of a bachelor slob. But the stairs are free of debris, the whitewashed walls gleaming in the candlelight, and the first door Isak opens reveals a bare wooden floor swept clean to the point of shine, an old brass headed bedstead made up neatly despite the way it's mattress sags in the middles with age and wear. 

There are no personal effects in the room, the walls are bare and the dresser empty, so Isak mentally claims it for himself before moving on. The next room is a little more lived in, though still fastidiously clean. There are a few framed pressed flowers on the dresser and a tarnished silver hairbrush lying beside a bone handled mirror. The two beds are at right angles to each other, and are each topped with faded eiderdowns. Isak lets his hand run across the closest one, and feels the contrast between the soft, worn fabric and the large coarse stitches where the fraying edges have been darned up by a less skilled hand. He remembers with the vivid clarity of childhood the sharp prick of the darning needle against his own thumb, Lea’s snide laugher and the soothing miracle of his mother’s kiss. The thought hurts more than the remembered sting, and he turns away from it. Grounds himself in the here and now.

On the wall above the furthest bed hangs a framed photograph, its sepia tones bleached mustard yellow and blurred with age. Isak steps around the bed for a closer look, curiosity pulling him up onto his tiptoes as he presses a hand to the frame. It's small, not much larger than a postcard, and it's dirty, his fingers coming away grey and gritty as he wipes at the glass. In the space he leaves behind sit five solemn faces, a man and woman -- heavy set and well aged -- flanked by two girls with long ropes of flaxen hair, and at their knees, a boy.

The boy’s face is obscured, not by dust or age, but by the old style camera's inability to capture him in motion. His legs are drawn up almost around his ears, his fingers curled around the ankles of the adults, as though he's having to hold himself in place, as though --

“What are you looking at?"

The voice is low, quiet, too close by far, and Isak’s heart leaps into his throat, as he throws himself round. The candle flares wildly against the draft, sends drops of wax careening down to land on his bare wrist.

"Shit!" He shakes his hand reflexively and the candle drops. Isak drops to his knees and scrabbles after it, watching in mute horror as the puttering flame reaches the eiderdown. " _ Shit _ !" 

There's the rusty squeal of bedsprings, and then Isak finds himself resting with his face half an inch from Even's. Even, whose long body is sprawled out over the narrow bed, his hand on top of the candle, Isak's clammy fingers wrapped around his wrist. Even, who looks like sin and smells like the ocean and Isak clings on all the tighter so as not to drown.

"Are you hurt? Did it burn you?" Isak pinches at the skin of his wrist, tries to turn his hand over, but Even doesn't move.

It's dark now with the candle snuffed out and night fully fallen. Dark enough that if Isak looks up, he doesn't know what he'll see in the shadows. Or does. Perhaps that’s worse.

"My grandmother made these bedspreads," Even says.

"I'm sorry." Isak swallows. "I didn't mean --"

"It's all right." Even's hand moves, barely a twitch of tendons under thin skin but still Isak's fingers tighten without him meaning to. Even puffs out a laugh Isak feels against his cheek. "She was a real bitch."

"I shouldn't have come up without permission, I was just -- I thought --"

A silver of distant moonlight falls across the quirk of Even's brow.

"You need permission? From me?" Isak's throat works, but his mind is all fog, every sensible thought scattering as Even finally turns his hand over. The candle lies spent and harmless between their palms, the pad of Even's thumb keeping Isak from pulling away. 

"Yes, of course I --"

"Consider this it, then."

He moves his thumb, a stroke. Soft and gentle and undeniable. Isak focuses on the ache of the floorboards against his knees, wills his voice not to crack like a boy’s. 

"What?"

Even looks up, and Isak catches the flash of his eyes before the moon moves behind a cloud.

"Permission."

\---

Isak takes the third watch, the last before dawn. 

Even has led them all up to the gantry in turn and sat with them as they fiddled and fumbled their way through unfamiliar tasks. He cannot have slept more than an hour at most -- Isak is certain of this, because he’s not had a moment’s rest himself. He hasn’t set foot back upstairs since he’s bolted from the bedroom with a muttered apology and cheeks so hot that Magnus made some jest about using his face instead of the sputtering stovetop to brew their coffee. He isn’t yet sure he ever will again.

Avoidance only goes so far though on an island that’s perhaps two hundred feet across and contains only four other people. Particularly when that island’s only permanent resident seems determined to recruit all into his employ.

So he follows Even up the spiral staircase, keeps his eyes fixed on the rungs until there are none left to look for, and concentrates on Even’s instructions until the furrow between his brows feels permanent, the pain behind his eyes throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

He’s checking the angles of the lens, ensuring the wick burns as bright as it needs to, when he feels Even behind him -- not touching, but close enough that it drives the chill of the night away as though it never existed at all.

“You’ve a natural talent,” Even says, half a whisper, and Isak tries to keep his hand steady. “What do you do, out there?”

“Out there?”

Isak catches Even’s shrug from the corner of his eye. “The real world. The mainland. The place you existed before you came here although --” He laughs, high and bright and the contrast almost makes Isak jump. “You know what I thought when I first saw you?”

Isak shakes his head, a short, sharp bitter thing.  _ I don’t want to know _ , he thinks, ought to mean but doesn’t.  _ Not what I thought when I saw you _ , he’s willing to bet. Even ignores him though and shifts ever so slightly closer. Isak can see their reflection in the glass of the lantern, his face pale, dark smudges in the hollows of his eyes, and Even, his over long hair glowing bright, his face tilted down toward Isak’s own.

“I truly thought I’d dreamt you.” He is whispering now, a secret held close between the two of them and the flame. “I thought -- why him? Why here?” 

Isak watches his reflection move closer. Closes his eyes against it.

“Do you understand me?” He can feel the words brush against his ear, so close that if he moved -- if he moved he might taste them, tart and heady as sin. “Isak?” A breath. It stutters over his skin and he curls his hands into fists. “Do you?”

Isak thinks of the library, the warehouse, of rough hands and soft skin and the thrill of bodies in the dark. He doesn’t mean to -- swore he wouldn’t. Begged on bended knee for forgiveness and got it -- of a kind. He isn’t to think on it again. He isn’t. But Even keeps breathing. Keeps existing, right there, like some forbidden fruit from the Bible his mother had beaten him with. And all Isak can taste is the memory of copper-bright blood as he bites his own cheek. 

“I --” He doesn’t open his eyes. Can’t. Perhaps this is the true punishment for his sins, not the fire and brimstone, not the hard labour and the sting of oakum, but this -- _this_ man so close, asking. And Isak, unable to answer. Unable even to lie. “I can’t.”

“Can’t?”

“Mustn’t.”

A gust of wind plucks at his coat, icy fingers wrapping around his wrists. He feels Even step away, and shudders against the chill.

“Are they the same thing?” he says, and Isak finally opens his eyes. Opens his eyes and regrets it at once, because he knows the look on Even’s face -- even half hidden in the shadows as he slips away. Can feel the lines of it settle on his own. Hope belayed, and the green-grey hollows of dread beneath his eyes. He hates it -- hates it in the mirror and hates it even more on Even. Hates the thought that Even might feel the same sick self-loathing that he does, hates that that smile could hide a misery that will burrow bone deep until it rots him from the inside out.

Hates that he could change it, perhaps, with a single word. Just one, enough to let him know that he’s not alone, that he’s not --  _ wrong _ . Or if he is, he is, at least, not alone.

_ Permission _ , Isak thinks.  _ He gave you permission. _

He wishes permission were what mattered.

Even slips out to the gantry, his steps ringing hollow as he makes his way down to the ground. 

Isak waits for the echoes to fade, waits for the sun to push weakly at the distant horizon.

And doesn’t speak at all.


	4. An Everlasting Itch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to HedwigsTalons for the beta, and the ongoing cheerleading of the SKAM big bang discord server!
> 
> None explicit maturbation references here so proceed with caution if that's something that is likely to bother you.

Isak shouldn’t be surprised to find Even in the kitchen when he finally makes his way down to the house proper. The man clearly never sleeps. No one else has yet made their way down from the bedroom with the singed eiderdown -- the winter sun is not bright enough to rouse them by itself, and Isak knows that waking them ought to be his role now. That the receiver in Husøya will be waiting for their morning report, and that lack of action will not be taken as an excuse.

He pulls out a chair, and sits. Even continues to stand at the stovetop, stirring something in an iron pot that looks like something Isak’s grandmother might use to bathe in.

“I left it lit,” he says, then coughs into his fist as Even stiffens in surprise. “I hope -- is that all right?”

“It’s a lighthouse,” Even says softly but without turning around. “It ought always to be lit for those who need it.”

“Even in the day?”

Even does turn at that, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“You call this day?”

Isak lets his own lips curl into a smirk. “Well if it’s all you have to offer.”

“Oh,” Even says, and his smile flashes quicksilver before he turns away again. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“No?” The tension from the lamp room seems to have disappeared with the night. There’s an unfamiliar lightness in Isak now, a giddiness almost, as though he’s been at the rum. “What else could there possibly be?”

Even drops his ladle into the pot and rocks back on his heels. He looks over at Isak with sharply narrowed eyes, and lowers his voice conspiratorially. 

“What do you know of pirates?”

Isak crosses his arms and tilts his chin up. “Pirates? They’re children's stories. Peg legs and parrots.”

Even inclines his head slightly. “I haven’t a parrot,” he admits. Then the smile from before reappears. Lingers beautifully around his eyes and in the curve of his jaw. Isak lets himself follow the line of it until he’s captured once more by the intensity of those eyes. Even’s eyebrows flick upward. Isak frowns.

“Lighthouse keeper is a strange career for a pirate.”

“You’re not concerned about the pegleg?”

“I’ve seen you climb that tower, you don’t have a pegleg.”

“Ah,” says Even, delighted. “You were  _ looking _ .”

Isak ought to balk, ought to -- but there’s something about Even’s bright, open smile, the warmth of the hearth and the pink light at the window that settles him, deep, deep down in the darkest part of him. So he smiles instead, and watches the joy crest and sparkle in Even’s eyes.

He can allow himself this, surely. A friendship. A friendship with one who -- one who  _ knows _ . One who knows, and still looks at him with a smile that would win the hardest heart. It’s enough. It has to be enough.

There’s a great clattering from the stairs and then Magnus appears in the doorway, his hat askew and his shirt still half unbuttoned. He looks first to Even with a beaming smile before noticing Isak at the table.

“Oh!” he staggers a little more upright and offers a lopsided salute. “Good morning, Sir.”

“Sir, is it?” Even says with droll amusement. “Has the night made a soldier of you Magnus?”

Magnus grimaces. There’s the thin sheen of sweat against his upper lip and his skin is a little closer to grey than pink. Isak makes a mental note to check the level in the rum flagon before handing out tonight’s ration.

“Are Jonas and Mahdi still sleeping?” he asks, more because he can’t think of anything else to say than out of any particular concern as to their whereabouts. Magnus shakes his head, then winces guiltily. Perhaps Isak won’t bother checking the flagon after all.

“They left to check the gun,” he says. “Mahdi worries that the spray will damage it.”

“He’s probably right,” hums Even, ladling something dark and thick into the same bowls they’d used for their coffee last night. “Not that it will matter.” He drops one bowl in front of Isak. It’s a mixture of what looks like beef and potato -- a version of his grandmother’s lapskaus in a thick, marrow rich gravy. Even winks. “A gift from the best chef on  Sørholmen . Enjoy.” 

“A bold statement.”

“Magnus made supper, didn’t you Magnus?”

Magnus nods miserably, and Isak’s lips twitch. Perhaps the rum is safe after all.

“So you don’t think we'll need to repel the Kaiser's invasion?” Isak asks as Even nods to Magnus to take a seat and settles himself into the chair opposite Isak. “He showed little concern for Belgium’s neutrality.”

“Because he wanted France,” Even says. He lifts his spoon to his mouth, a little gravy escapes and he licks it away in a quick movement before continuing. “There’s nothing for him here.”

“He comes every summer!” Magnus cries with apparent offence, and Isak smiles down into his stew. “He loves it here!”

“He isn’t annexing countries for their choice of summer homes,” Even says, and Isak feels his eyes go wide. Even’s strange Nordland accent doesn’t seem to suit the same muttered political intrigues that Isak is used to hearing over the breakfast table at home. He can’t imagine  _ him _ with his head bent low behind the newspaper as servants pour coffee into bone china cups. And yet, “and even if he were -- surely he’d come from the east? Use the Baltic straits?”

“The Swedes --”

“The Swedes have not long been our friends.” Even waves his spoon, flecks of beef and potato flying over the table. “But besides, it’s not the Kaiser I fear. It’s the British.”

Isak scoffs at that, suddenly far more interested in Even’s opinions than he’s ever managed to be in his father’s. “The British are our closest trading partners.”

“And thus those with the most to lose.” Even chews, swallows. “Why send you to Helgeland, then, if they trust Asquith to honour our neutrality?”

“Perhaps they just wanted rid of us,” Isak says without thinking. “Not every conscript is to be trusted with the Akershus.”

Magnus drops his spoon with a clatter, gravy and bits of boiled carrot splattering across his front. “Ah, sorry,  _ damn _ . I couldn’t even make this shirt last one day --”

“I'll wash it.” Magnus and Isak both gape at Even as he shrugs, wiping at his mouth with his own sleeve. “I’ve been alone here since my parents took my sisters back to Narvik. You learn.”

“You’re not our washerwoman,” Isak protests, “we can do our own laundry, cook our own meals. You didn’t ask for us to come here, we can’t --”

“I didn’t,” Even agrees, there’s an edge to the pleasant generosity of his tone. He keeps his eyes on Isak. “That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful you did. And it doesn't mean I ought to be a poor host.”

The door to the kitchen swings open, Jonas and Mahdi tumbling in with a sharp wind at their backs.

“Nothing to report,” Jonas announces as Mahdi heads straight to the stove and sniffs experimentally at the remaining stew. “Disi over there thought he saw a barge without banners, but it turns out it was a whale.”

Magnus’s eyes grow huge. “What kind of whale?”

“A fucking big one, do I look like an expert on whales to you?” Mahdi pulls out the chair between Magnus and Even and points to Magnus’s bowl. “You going to finish that?”

“Get your own,” Magnus huffs, pulling it closer to his chest.

“You look like you’ve had enough.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, only I’m hungry. It’s cold out there and  _ some  _ of us have been working.”

“Whale spotting isn’t  _ work _ , not when you can’t even  _ identify _ them.”

Jonas and Isak exchange a wry look.

“There’s more stew on the stove,” Isak tells Mahdi, glancing at Even for permission as he does so. There’s a tight little smile on Even’s face as though he’s struggling to hold back a laugh. “And Magnus and I will go out and report now. What time do you need each of us to take watch tonight?”

It seems to take Even a moment to realise it’s him that Isak is addressing, but that’s all right. It gives Isak the chance to observe realisation dawn across his features, allows him the excuse to watch the dusky light play over his features as he turns his face toward the window. His profile is sharp, his jawline strong yet softly curved, and as his lips part slightly in consideration Isak finds his own following suit like an answer to a question not yet asked.

“It looks to be a bright one tonight. I’d best take it.”

“Bright?” Jonas furrows his brows. “Isn’t that to your advantage?”

“Not quite. The lights up here -- they dance. Some say they can drive a man mad, if he lets them. And certainly they’re no good to navigate by.” He shakes his head slightly, and his hair falls into his eyes, a shadow passing over him as he sucks his lower lip between his teeth. “No, you do your job. I’ll do mine.” 

So Isak does.

He heads out to the shed where they’ve set up the radiotelegraph and watches Magnus tap out a message with fingers far quicker and surer than Isak expected, then directs Jonas in shoring up the aerial which is already tending to lean over too far with the prevailing winds. He checks on the gun and on Mahdi who tends to it with the soft care of a lover. Avails himself of the privy. Boils water on the stovetop and burns the tips of his fingers against the handle of the kettle.

Does it all again. Twice.

And all the time, every moment, all he can think about is where Even might be. Is he sleeping up in the third room, the one Isak has yet to enter? Is he tending to the light already, bent half double in the narrow space between gantry and lamp as he coaxes it into life? 

Or is he just beyond the rickety wall of the shed where Isak hides himself away. Where he scrubs his hands over his eyes until he sees nothing but hot bursts of colour, thinks of nothing but the sweet possibility of Even’s mouth against his own. 

Of the perfect, paper thin skin of his wrist and the strength hidden behind it.

Of permission granted, and Isak helpless to obey.

Is he watching through the warped sidings as Isak gives in to the urge to imagine, when he leans back against a half rotten barrel? Does he hear the way Isak murmurs his own benediction as he gives himself over to the idea of it?

Will he push at the door, held closed by only a few measly rocks, and catch Isak with his hand fisted inside his trousers, his belt undone? 

Will he step inside, close it behind him?

Or will he turn away? Disgusted. Ashamed.

Would Isak be able to stop, if he did?

By the time the green and pink flames begin to lick at the tips of the waves Isak is quite sure he’s already more than half mad.

The four of them watch for a while. Magnus tells stories about the old Gods while Jonas laughs, but Isak knows -- he knows the truth about the lights. Why they rise and fall, why they cast the world in unearthly tones. Once upon a time he’d have been the first to rubbish tales of Valhalla and Valkyries for the nonsense that they are, but there’s something different about seeing them out here -- miles from anything that could even offer a pretense of civilisation. Here, science and knowledge seem to have no real place alongside a sky that burns and the black, hissing sea.

So Isak knows, but he listens anyway. Allows Magnus’s flights of fancy to carry him away from the dangers of his own wild imaginings -- away from the beam that throws itself out above their heads and the man who controls it. And in time, when the three of them retire after a supper of dark rye and herring, Isak almost feels able to follow them upstairs. 

Almost.

The truth is, he doesn’t sleep much. He never has. As a child his mother had put it down to him having a mind too busy to settle, had said it with a sort of maternal pride.  _ My clever boy, my little philosopher _ .

The older he’d become, the less she’d approved of his thoughts and the less she’d been able to express any of her own. His sleepless nights had been blamed on fallen angels, spirits, had been treated with laudanum and prayer and worse until sleep became a risk, a danger. Until no locked door or judiciously placed dresser was able to keep Isak’s very real demon at bay.

Here, perhaps, the ocean will manage better than they ever did.

He potters around the kitchen for a little while, pairs up the gumboots and hangs Even’s greatcoat close to the hearth to dry. He opens the larder, counts the jars of herring and the boxes of hardtack. Picks up a tin of snus and sniffs at the contents, puts it back, then pinches enough to last him the night.

He has a pack of Gauloises stashed away in his trunk that he’d liberated from his father’s office on that last, awkward, embarkation leave, and he has no idea when he’s likely to be able to get another. The pantry is reasonably stocked with various things heavily pickled, but cigarettes are likely to be a more challenging commodity to get hold of when one is living on a godforsaken rock surrounded by nothing but legends and whales.

Plus, they may well yet be useful. Just because Isak hasn’t been caught today -- one hand in his trousers and the other pressed against his mouth hard enough to bruise -- that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be in need of a little bribery material later on. In his experience not all men’s silence can be brought with cigarettes and rum, but more can than cannot.

The very fact that he’s expecting it -- planning for it even -- suggests that he hasn’t yet learned his lesson. He isn’t sure he ever will. He isn’t sure he ever wants to.

He  _ should _ want to. That he does know. It’s a sin, after all, against all the laws of nature and of man -- that’s what they had told him, bellowed at him, in the interminable  _ after _ of his betrayal.

He remembers his mother’s screams, the spittle flying from her mouth, the crack of leather across his cheek, his father’s grey-pale silence as she shrieked his shame to the entire household -- the entire city, it had seemed. Kristiania herself standing aghast at the news that  _ Valtersen’s boy _ is a --

He doesn’t even think of that word. Doesn’t allow it to enter his mind. Won’t allow it space next to the memory of skin against skin and lips on flesh and the so-soft solidity of the man at his back. Won’t accept, even now, even ruined as he is, that it wasn’t worth it.

And that -- that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? The truth at the black, secret heart of him.

It will always be worth it.


	5. Never Perfect, Nor Contended

Isak doesn’t follow the other boys upstairs in the end, choosing instead to stay in the warmth of the kitchen and watch the lighthouse’s beam flashing out over the island and out to sea. He likes the peacefulness of it, the silence that lies like a blanket between him and the faint crackling of the stove. Likes being able to rest his folded arms against the worn table top and his chin against his tight knit hands.

Likes the way that when he’s alone he can drop the mask he feels weighing him down around the others, the way he doesn’t have to laugh at Mahdi’s lewd jokes or pretend to be interested in Magnus’ long, overly detailed rhapsodies on the girl he’s left behind.

Likes that, for once, he doesn’t have to lie. Not even to himself.

“You aren’t sleeping?”

Isak jolts. Lit from behind by the gas lamps, Even looks as though an angel has come to call. A too tall, too pale angel whose halo of golden hair has fallen only to curl damply at their neck. An angel with purple bruises under his eyes and paraffin on his cheek, and he is so beautiful Isak regresses into helpless sarcasm. “Me? Of course I’m asleep, can’t you tell? Do you hallucinate often?”

“I’ve seen stranger things on a long night.” Even shrugs. His hands are stuffed deep in the pockets of his oversized rubber jacket. “Believe me.”

“I’m sure you have.” Isak watches him hover in the doorway of his own home as though waiting to be invited in, tall enough to have to dip his head slightly to fit beneath the frame, as though the house itself were built for a man some inches shorter and Even doesn’t quite belong. Isak wonders what Even must think, seeing Isak sitting in his space in his shirtsleeves with the pantry door open and the kettle steaming. Like he is the one this house was built for, and Even the outsider looking in.

Isak takes a step closer to the doorway, to Even. The sudden fear that there might be some line here that he doesn’t yet know not to cross has him searching Even's expression for anger . He doesn’t find any though, only a sort of wistfulness that makes Isak's heart ache. 

“Do you want coffee?” he asks, because otherwise he'd have to turn away again and he isn't sure he can.

Even smiles, a small, delicate thing, but doesn’t move from the threshold. “I won’t turn down the offer, if you’re making it.” 

Isak nods and sets himself to the task. His attempt is thicker and darker than Even’s had been, but it smells like coffee at least which is more than Magnus’s luncheon attempt had managed. He draws his brows together as he pours it into one of the enamel mugs, careful not to spill a drop, then carries it over with impressively steady hands.

“You carry that as if it’s a treasure,” Even says, their fingers brushing as he takes the mug. “I do have more, you know.”

“Yes,” Isak agrees, “but that’s yours. We shouldn’t take advantage of your hospitality.”

Even raises his eyebrows. “How can it be taking advantage if you have permission?”

That word again, and Isak’s heart skips even as he grimaces.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you ought to.” He speaks almost without thinking and regrets it just as quickly. But it's too late to take the words back now. They hang between them like the cloud of steam from the mug between Even's hands -- just as opaque to Isak, but just as likely to scald. Even’s smile drops away and he nods, just once, before turning away with a finality that has Isak half lunging after him.

_ I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I don’t. _

_ (Don’t go,  _ he thinks.  _ Don’t go _ .)

“You’re going back up?” Is what he actually says, a little breathless, a little too needy, but it stops Even in his tracks at least. He turns back; inclines his head towards Isak, and there's no smile this time, but it’s enough. It’s something. “Do you want company?”

Even looks him up and down. It’s a clinical sort of appraisal, no heat in the look, but Isak feels the blood pool in his cheeks all the same. Flood lower as Even's eyes linger.

“You really ought to get some sleep before your own watch, Isak.”

Isak shrugs, already looking about for where he’s tidied away his boots, half because he genuinely wants to follow and half to hide his flushed face. He should perhaps have paid slightly more attention to his self-made tasks, though. At least one of his boots has ended up in the pantry. “I don’t really need much. And besides --  _ you’ve  _ been up since well before dawn.”

“That doesn’t mean much out here,” Even says with a laugh. “I’m perfectly used to it. Perfectly suited to the lifestyle, as my father used to say.” He leans against the door jamb and watches Isak crawl under the table in search of his other boot. Puts on a lower, slower voice. “ _ No rest for the wicked _ .”

Isak cuts him a sideways look as he pulls at his laces. Tries to imagine anything less wicked than Even’s soft little laugh, the gentle way he scrapes a fingernail over the splinters in the wood, the patient way he looks down on Isak. 

“What did you do, before we came? Did you not sleep at all then?”

“Hardly.” Even smiles again, not the great beaming one that sets his eyes alight, nor the secret, tempting one from the previous night. This one is narrow, tight at the corners. Sad, Isak thinks, if a smile can be sad. “Is that strange?”

Isak shrugs. “You’re no more strange than I am, then.”

“Well then, come up.” Even’s smile tilts up, his eyebrows dancing against his pale forehead in a dot-dash-dot of a movement that Isak doesn’t need Magnus to interpret. “And we can be strange together.”

Isak hasn’t an answer for that, not out loud anyway; only turns down the gas as he leaves, turns his eyes up to the dark, unseeing windows of the second floor as he steps out into the frost-bitter air. The lamps are out in the bedroom, at least, but if one of the boys should look out now --

“It isn’t a crime, you know,” Even says without so much as looking back at him as he strides over to the tower. “If they come down we can just say you came up to take over.”

“Is that not what I’m doing?” Isak asks, but it sounds false even to his own ears, and Even doesn’t answer either.

Perhaps that is answer enough.

Even pauses at the bottom of the staircase and gestures for Isak to go first. Isak looks at him a little askance, but stiffens his shoulders and begins to clamber up. He feels the iron steps sink and shudder as Even follows behind him; keeps his attention on the climb to distract himself from the heady sense of pursuit. Forces himself to climb faster and faster still, two steps at a time, as though he’s proving a point he has no memory of making.

He half rolls out of the hatch and onto the gantry, his chest heaving with unnecessary exertion, and lets himself observe the easy way Even throws one long arm through, then the other, before propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at Isak warily.

“Are you all right?”

“Mmm,” Isak hums, rolling his head against the cool iron floor. “Perhaps I ought to have worked a little harder in Physical Training.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Even says. He pulls himself up to standing, then steps over Isak until his feet are either side of Isak’s knees. He extends a hand down. “You look well enough to me.”

Isak grimaces. “If I were a woman I’d take it you were calling me plump.”

“Ah.” Even grins; wriggles his fingers. “But you’re not.”

Even's grin grows impossibly wider until Isak can see the pink tip of his tongue sneaking out between his teeth. 

Isak reaches up, grasps Even’s hand as tight as he dares and allows him to pull him to his feet. They linger, hand in hand, for a long moment. To anyone watching from below it might look like a handshake; just two men reaching some silent accord silhouetted against the night.

“No,” Isak says. “I’m not.”

Even lets go first and Isak forces himself to release him. The space where Even’s hand had been suddenly feels far colder than the night around them, the tips of Isak’s fingers trembling a little more than they ought to as Even turns his attention to the lamp. Isak leans back against the gantry rail and blows into his hands, content for the moment to simply observe Even at work; the long line of his back, the smooth, certain movements of a man who truly knows his place.

The lens throws a carpet of stars out around their feet as Even winds the lamp’s mechanism, and up here in the black of the godless night Isak can almost imagine what it might be like to live amongst them -- a flaming speck a billion miles from anything or anyone -- to exist only to burn hot, and bright, and die.

It’s a dark thought for a dark night, but as Even works the lamp brightens and the stars at Isak’s feet coalesce into something solid -- a bridge of light that reaches out from this little island and out into the world beyond. 

It ought to be nice. Comforting. But something about it makes Isak shiver, makes him wrap his arms tighter around his belly and wish for the return of the secretive stars, the darkness between them.

“You’re cold.” Even clicks the handle back into place and moves around the lamp to face Isak. He lets his fingers brush the edge of the lens as he does so, presses that borrowed heat into the line of Isak’s jaw. It’s an innocent touch -- born of concern and nothing else -- but Isak presses back against it, helpless. Lets his eyes fall shut. “Here.”

The loss of Even’s touch is a cruel bereavement, but before Isak can protest -- if he could, what would he say? There’s nothing to say -- he finds himself being wrapped in that same sweet, soft heat, opening his eyes to the vision of the pale lines of Even’s bare neck as he tucks his scarf around Isak’s throat.

“I wouldn't mind, you know,” he says as he tugs the scarf higher around Isak’s ears. 

“What?” 

“Hallucinating you.” He lets his hands rest briefly against Isak’s jaw; they’re so cold without the lamp’s heat that they almost burn. “I can think of far worse things my mind could conjure. It always seems to have an endless capacity to imagine ugliness, but to dream of you instead, to see you --" He pauses, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. “I would happily go mad to the sight of you, Isak.”

Even’s scarf smells like him, like sweat and snus, oil and the icy cold of the wind, and Isak buries his nose in it, inhales, deep as he dares, and bites his lip till he tastes iron. “Oh,” he says. It is, he will admit, not an example of his best repartee. 

Even’s eyebrows rise. “Does that frighten you?”

_ Yes. Yes, of course -- who do you think you are, who do you think I am -- _

Isak juts his chin up. “Nothing frightens me.”

Then Even is busy readjusting Isak’s hat, shifting it this way and that as though looking for a particularly jaunty angle. As though he has to keep his hands busy and Isak’s forage hat is the safest available option. He’s probably right. This is dangerous ground.

He doesn’t look Isak in the eyes as he says, “I don’t think that’s true.”

“You think I’m a liar?”

Even stops fiddling with the hat only to return to the scarf. He plucks at the edges, holds Isak’s face in his hands -- his thumbs on Isak's cheekbones as he pulls back, brows furrowed. An artist observing his work. “I don’t think you’re a fool, Isak.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Even’s eyes are wide, honest; Isak hates himself for the lie almost immediately. 

Even let’s his calloused thumbs press down, smooth their way against the sharpness of Isak’s features, tremors in their wake that Isak feels written over his skin.

“And I  _ know _ you aren’t a simpleton.”

“What does that make you then?” Isak lifts his own hands up to rest over Even’s; presses down until he can feel the chill of him in his bones. “A coward or a fool?”

Even smiles. “Oh, both. Always both.”

“I don’t think that’s true either,” Isak whispers, and they’re close enough now that their noses knock together with no memory of who moved first. Who leaned in. It doesn't matter anyway, not when Isak swears he feels the flutter of Even’s lashes, can taste the sweet, unsteady exhale of his breath as his fingers brush at the curls behind Isak’s ear. His hat falls, and the wind will take it -- but Isak, Isak doesn’t care. “Even --”

"It won't be over by Christmas," isn't what he expected to hear, he isn't even sure what he expected -- only what he wants, and that's -- that's never the same thing. Even pulls back and that isn't what he expected, either. Nor is the way he looks down, as serious as a curse but with his hands half in Isak's hair, his thumbs stroking the ridge of his brow -- calloused but still oh so soft. Tender as his voice when he adds, "But it will be. One day. Remember that, Isak. It will be over one day."

And then he's gone, back to his lamp, back to the shadows that linger behind it, and Isak's hands twitch at the loss.

His throat is dry, his tongue too big for his mouth, and he coughs before he manages to stammer out, "How can you be so sure? War never -- there's always war, Even. When this war ends there'll be another, and another -- powerful men make the wrong choices and we'll all have to pay for them."

The light turns, a kaleidoscope of blinding magnesium white, but Isak can still see the blue of Even's eyes. Soft, bright, beautiful eyes. The colour of the fjord in May, in the shallows where it butts up against his father's warehouse. That sad little smile again as he shakes his head.

"Oh Isak." He breathes his name like a prayer, and it falls over Isak like a benediction. "Who said I was talking about the war?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to Hedwig for the beta, and to all the lovely people who've been kind enough to let me know they're enjoying this odd thing <3


	6. Blow the Man Down

Three weeks, and Even doesn't try to kiss him again.

Three weeks, and Isak is no longer certain he ever did. It feels like a fever dream, a moment of madness brought on by frustrated desire and the sort of loneliness that cracks ever wider whenever he thinks of it, like a chasm in a mountainside that leads nowhere but to hell.

Three weeks, and the rations are low.

Isak sits at the kitchen table, fastidiously dividing five pounds of salted beef and two waxed cheeses into five separate heaps. With no scales to hand he has to do it by eye, moving first one piece of beef and then a thimbleful of cheese from his own supply and adding them to the little pile he's earmarked as Even's. It makes sense that he ought to have a little more. He's taller. Older. They'll starve here regardless of rations if they're left to take on their own cooking duties. 

"You look a sorry sight."

He snaps his head up. "Flattery won't get you anymore cheese, Bech Næsheim."

Even hums, poking at the closest pile with the very tip of his finger. "I can live without it. It tastes like my grandfather's gumboot after a five night gale."

"I'm not sure we can afford to keep up with such a discerning palate as yours," Isak says with a scoff. "We're down to our last two barrels of fresh water."

"All the more reason to avoid the -- is it made with goat's milk, do you think? It smells rather like goats. Tastes like they smell, too."

Isak shakes his head. "I didn't ask for its papers, Even."

"And now we must live with the consequences." Even sighs, one hand pressed against his heart. "And beside which, that pile is far bigger than any of the others."

"Nonsense," Isak scoffs. "I'm being scrupulously fair. And what consequences?"

Even leans down to whisper conspiratorially in his ear, "I believe the unequal distribution of terrible cheese could lead to dissention in the ranks, Sir."

Isak rolls his eyes. "Are you here for a reason, Bech Næsheim?"

"Well at first I missed your company,  _ Valtersen _ , but it seems you need my help." He lifts the piece of beef from his pile and returns it to Isak's. "There. Better."

Isak sucks a breath between his teeth and sits back in the chair. "Better sounds like a rather positive interpretation. At this rate by a week on Thursday we'll be drawing straws for the first human sacrifice."

"No news from the mainland then?"

"We could all be under British rule already and none of us would know."

"A travesty, imagine you in one of those little bowler hats."

"Don't."

Even drops down to kneel beside him, his cheek resting against the tabletop. It's a pointless action. They're alone here; he has the choice of the kitchen's seating. Instead he ignores it all in favour of pushing the tip of his nose into the side of Isak's hand, an animal begging affection.

Isak doesn't realise he's moved until he feels the salt-roughened strands of Even's hair between his fingers.

"What are we doing?"

Even rubs his head against Isak's hand like a contented cat, and God help him but Isak doesn't move away. "I have my monthly shipment due in ten days. Can we wait that long?"

Even didn't answer his question, so Isak doesn't answer his. Only shrugs, tugging lightly at the matted locks.

"We can always eat Magnus."

Even smiles up at him, half visible, and it makes Isak's breath catch in his throat.

"I thought we were drawing straws?"

Isak feels his own mouth tick up as he risks the softest brush of fingertips against skin. Lingers, just a moment, at the corner of his smile.

"You have a lot to learn, Bech Næsheim."

Even sighs, a full body thing that Isak watches roll through him until it escapes in little stuttering puffs that land like kisses against Isak's palm, the feeling lingering as he lifts his hand away.

"Oh," Even says, soft as can be. "Oh good."

\----

The day after they eat the last of the cheese Isak finds himself out at the shoreline, hands on his hips and a dawning sense of dread in his soul.

"As your superior officer --"

Jonas groans. "Don't pull that card now, Isak!"

"I mean it!” Isak spits. “Look at the state of that thing!"

"It'll be fine --

Isak looks from Even, who is standing with a half rotten rowboat over one shoulder, quant pole in hand, and looking unfairly attractive about it, over to Jonas and Mahdi who are carrying two rolls of what looks like old hemp netting between them. 

"No," he says again. "No."

"Isak --" Even starts, but Isak just holds a hand up to silence him. 

"Rations are --" Jonas tries. Isak throws his other hand up at him.

"I don't want to be eaten," whines Magnus.

Isak scowls at Even, who shrugs the casual shrug of a Judas.

"I thought he deserved to know."

“This is mutiny,” Isak hisses.

"Is it mutiny?" Jonas muses, turning to Mahdi, "or would that be if we ate Isak?"

Mahdi screws his face up, considering. "I think if we ate Isak there's be no one to charge us so --"

"Focus," Isak hisses. "No one's getting eaten, for fuck's -- where are you going now!"

Even looks up from where he's bent double pushing the little boat off the lowest step until its bow hits the water. It leaves splinters of once blue paint in its wake and creaks alarmingly.

"Fishing," Even says, apparently entirely unconcerned that he's leaving a significant layer of his keel on shore. "Believe it or not, Isak, I have done this before. Trust me."

Isak looks down to where the sea meets the rocky shore and grimaces. It's quiet enough today, the waves lapping up against the hull of the boat as Even pushes her off the edge, but it's bitterly cold. Their breath rises in front of them, and Isak's nose is so cold he's no longer entirely sure it's still there.

"Isak." Even's soft voice breaks through his thoughts. "It's quite safe, I promise. It'll be fine."

Isak knows when he's outnumbered, and the rations are miserably low. His choices are limited, and as much as he hates the idea of any of them stepping foot in that sad excuse for a boat  _ someone  _ is going to have to feed them.

"I'll go," he says, stepping forward. "Leave it, Even. I'll go."

Even laughs. He's already standing in the stern, his legs apart and his grip on the quant as natural as breathing. "Do you know how to fish?"

Isak grimaces. "I'll learn."

"And I'll teach you," Even agrees, "but not right now. Trust me, Isak. Please?"

Isak sighs and nods, once -- a jerky, miserable sort of thing -- and then Jonas and Mahdi are trotting past him to hand Even one ball of netting. Jonas keeps hold of the other as Even steps into the boat. It rocks unsteadily beneath him, and Isak turns his face up to the cloudless navy sky. The sun hasn't broken the horizon today, and the endless dusk doesn't help the misery of empty stomachs.

He closes his eyes against the splash as Even drops the quant down against the seabed and pushes off; keeps them closed, listening to the calls between Even and Jonas as the latter pays out the net between them until it must be as tight as Isak’s nerves.

“You can go in, you know!” Even calls from the boat. Isak opens his eyes and squints out to see him fifty yards or so from shore, tying the net to something in the stern. It’s hard to see much in this light -- Even is just a pale figure hovering above an endless black.

"No," he calls back. "I'm keeping my eye on you!"

Isak folds his arms and sets his feet against the rock. He’s not going anywhere; not until Even is back on dry land. Jonas and Mahdi exchange a look that Isak pretends not to see.

It’s not -- it’s not because it’s  _ Even _ , bobbing up and down on what amounts to a piece of hollow driftwood. Isak wouldn’t be happy about any of the men under his command being out there alone in the dark and cold, he wouldn’t, but Even isn’t -- Even is --

“If you’re wanting to stay out, Sir,” Mahdi says, voice a little lower than usual, “you could take the net?”

Isak side eyes both the use of the honorific and Mahdi’s faux angelic expression, but other than that he doesn’t hesitate, stepping down to the water’s edge and taking the heavy weight of the net in his arms. Jonas and Mahdi step back, then pause as though waiting for orders, but Isak doesn’t have any. Just keeps his gaze fixed on Even and his grip tight enough that his knuckles hurt.

“I’d make food,” Magnus says from somewhere behind them, “but --”

“We’ll make do.” That’s Jonas, and Isak hears the scuffling as he and Mahdi make their way back up the cliff. Doesn't look back. “Come on, at least there’s tea.”

There isn’t -- Isak knows that. He rationed out the very last of the leaves this morning. But they’ll find that out for themselves soon enough.

The salt air is sharp against his cheeks and his eyes burn with it, but he doesn’t so much as twitch, barely even blinks. He hears the boat creaking, followed by a long sigh that’s carried to him by the wind.

“You’ll freeze.” 

Isak grits his teeth. “So will you.”

“I’m used to it.”

“I’ll  _ get _ used to it.”

The two of them stand in silence -- or perhaps Even is sitting, Isak can’t quite tell anymore -- until the light has passed the point where Even is anything more than a faint stain against the dark sky; a blacking out of stars. 

Perhaps they’re out there for an hour, perhaps it’s more or less, time doesn’t seem to hold much meaning tonight. Someone has taken it upon themselves to go and wind the light, at least, and the steady beam that flashes out over them takes some of the sting out of Isak’s watering eyes, throws Even’s fur cap into stark relief as he begins to shuffle about on the boat.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he calls, “whatever we’ve caught will be no use if you’re just going to stand there and freeze to death anyway.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Isak mutters, but his jaw aches from the chill and he very much doubts his voice can carry over the water. There’s a heavy splash as Even unties the net from the stern of the boat, and Isak struggles to relax his half frozen fingers from their death grip.

“Reel it in!” Even calls, and his voice isn’t at all roughened by the cold. In fact he sounds perfectly cheerful and it’s frankly unfair, as far as Isak is concerned, especially since it’s now on him to haul half a tonne of sodden hemp from the ocean floor. He throws a glance back at the boat before turning with the net over his shoulder, only to see Even stood watching -- the light from the lamp catching his grin and setting something in Isak’s belly on fire.

“You needn’t look so damn smug!” he calls over his shoulder as he tests his bodyweight against the nets. “You don’t even know if you’ve caught anything!”

Even’s laugh rings out, clear as a bell, as he drops the pole back in the water and begins to push the boat back to shore. “Oh, I’m confident!”

“He’s confident, he’s confident, hva faen --” Isak heaves at the nets, his feet slipping against the rime covered ground, and if Even has anything to add Isak cannot hear him over the drag and --

“Oh shit!” Even's cry carries like gunfire, followed by a splash so violent that freezing sea water hits the back of Isak's neck.

Isak drops the nets, heedless of the way they slither back towards the water, and throws himself over the shake to the water's edge. The rowboat rocks feet from the shore, listing hard to port and -- empty. 

Empty, and all that's left of Even are the heavy ripples spreading out from the bow.

"Even?" It's just a breath, an exhale between him and the inevitable, before he feels something cold and heavy coil around his ankles, work its way up his spine. Terror like ice freezing him bodily in place as he tries again, louder. "Even!"

There's no answer apart from the hiss of the water, no movement but the slow rocking of the boat, and Isak’s boots are already off, his heart in his throat, his coat halfway down his shoulders when --

"Jesus that's chilly!" Even rises up from the darkness between boat and shore, his hat askew and his hair slicked to his forehead. He stretches his long arms out for the shore then spots Isak, gaze flicking from his socked feet to his face.

Isak dreads to think what he sees there, can't recognise his own expression only that he's almost certain is not one he's ever worn before.

"Were you worried?" He's laughing and Isak can only gape at him, feels himself filled with some unnamable feeling that’s half fury and half a relief so fierce he feels as though his heart may burst. “It’s not deep, there’s --”

“Not deep? You’re going to freeze to death, come on --” Isak shrugs his coat back on and forces his feet into his still laced boots as best he can. Even heaves himself out of the water, but then instead of making for the comparative warmth of the house he starts fumbling with the nets. Isak stares at him, aghast. “What are you doing?!”

“If my choices are either to freeze to death or starve I’ll take freezing, thank you. Quicker," Even says. Isak watches as he attempts to get a grip on the nets, the fish that they've managed to catch gasping the frigid air, and as he struggles Isak's breathing seems to speed up too, just as frantic, just as hopeless.

"Enough, come here." He takes hold of Even's sodden coat and pulls him away from the water. It takes hardly any strength, Even following his cue with hardly an ounce of effort against him despite the way he's still looking down at the nets or the low, stuttering grumbles he lets out. It isn't a good sign.

Isak is just casting a look back at the lighthouse, wondering if he will be able to carry him if needs must, when he spots a shadowy, wild-haired figure bolting toward them.

“Hey! Everything okay?” Jonas calls, half skidding down the rocks.

“No,” Isak tightens his grip on Even’s arm before he can stutter out a denial. “Where are the others?”

“Magnus is in the house, Mahdi’s on watch.” He looks at Isak and Even, eyes widening in concern when he spots Even's miserable condition. “Should I --”

Isak shakes his head, throws his shoulders back.  _ You're in command here, Valtersen. _

“Go back, tell Magnus to fill as many pans from the rainwater barrel as he can and get them on the stove. You and Mahdi come back down here, see if there’s anything edible in that mess.”

Jonas nods sharply, then flicks his eyes between Isak and Even, “Are you going to be alright?”

Isak tightens his grip, feels the fine shivers already beginning to wrack Even's body. Or perhaps it’s him that’s shaking. He has no idea. His own hands are so cold that he can no longer tell with any sort of certainty where he begins and Even ends, except for Even’s body is drenched and his exposed skin is fading from palest white to an unnatural blue. 

And beyond that, beyond the simple practicality of not freezing to death in this godforsaken place, lies the sickening absolutism that curled it's icy fingers around Isak's heart and squeezed the moment he saw the empty rowboat.

The certainty that nothing is alright, nothing ever will be, but that he can live with that, perhaps, as long as Even is here, here and could still be his. Will be his. Is.

But there are few words for such things, and they're spoken only in whispers amongst those who share the shadows, not bellowed across open ground to a man with kind eyes and a loaded rifle.

So Isak takes the easy option, and says nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quant is a pole used for moving boats and barges along, seen on Cambridge punts for example.


	7. You, Me and the Devil Makes Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to HedwigsTalons for the beta, I did press the wrong button at one point though so all lingering typos are my own fault entirely!

Magnus has a half dozen pots of various shapes and sizes boiling on the stovetop by the time Isak and Even make it back to the house, as well as the remaining half barrel of rainwater that they’ve been collecting since the freshwater started running low. 

“What’s happened?” asks Magnus, his face almost as pale as Even’s, though his is rapidly turning a worrisome shade of greyish blue. “You fell in?” 

“N-no,” mutters Even, lips curling back from his teeth in a grimace that is perhaps supposed to be a smile. “I was keen on a s-swim.”

Isak rolls his eyes, and finally drops his grip on Even long enough to unhook the copper bath from the wall where it hangs. 

“I don’t --”

“Don’t!” Isak holds up a finger. “You’re coming with me. Magnus, make tea.”

“We haven’t got any --”

“Improvise,” Isak hisses, and when Even makes no attempt to move he seizes him once more by the elbow and carts him toward the staircase.

And so it is that the first time Isak enters Even’s bedroom it’s in a frenzy of barely controlled panic; he drags open the drawers of the heavy armoire and pulls out every thick, woollen item he can find; turns to rip the eiderdown and blankets off the unmade bed; tugs the linen sheet free from the hook on the back of the door and bodily pulls Even’s head down until he can rub violently at his wet hair.

Even just stands there, dithering, and let’s him. 

“Take off your clothes,” Isak barks, turning to the pile of clothes on the floor and digging through them for the most likely contenders. He pulls out a jumper and a pair of worn woollen trousers, then turns back to Even with a huff of, “Now!”

Even makes a high pitched noise of protest, but Isak hasn't the time to concern himself with matters of modesty. He rolls his eyes and starts peeling Even’s sodden jumper off, rubbing vigorously with the towel at every piece of skin exposed. He tries not to take notice of his body beyond the most basic, necessary parts -- that it’s colder than it ought to be, and paler too, and the marks left by the towel are pink and rough against the soft skin of his belly, a brighter red along his ribs. Isak blinks, and forces his gaze back to his own hand, back to the linen and the steady, sexless sweep up and down, across and along -- keeps it there even as Even’s icy fingers grab at his wrist. 

“I’m okay, Isak,” he says. “I swear.”

Isak scowls at his forearm, at the goose pimples and the fine blonde hairs. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it, Mr ‘I know what I’m doing’.”

“Alright. But if you want to stay --” Even lets go and steps back, reaching for the towel as he does so. Isak raises an eyebrow and Even gestures to the buttons of his trousers. It’s difficult to tell with the way he still shivers, but Isak thinks he sees the corner of his mouth lift slightly, like a challenge. 

Isak feels his face grow hot enough to warm even the most chilled blood, and turns away. It does at least allow him the opportunity to observe the only room he's thus far avoided, and perhaps save some semblance of his dignity in the process.

Along with the unmade bed there are piles of papers on the floor and spread across the clothes chest. Pencils and books lay where they've fallen beside the bed, and the basin and mirror are streaked with soap scum. It’s as different to the clinical tidiness of the other rooms as it could possibly be, and yet Isak prefers it. The room he’s taken as his own is as still and quiet as a mausoleum -- Even’s speaks of life and movement and even Isak’s own breathing seems louder here, though, perhaps, that has more to do with the sound of wet, woollen long johns hitting the bare floorboards than it does any especial interest in Even’s decor.

He’s paying particularly close attention to one piece of paper near his foot -- roughly torn and with half a sketch of a boat remaining on it -- when Even’s arm snakes past him to reach for the jumper Isak had chosen.

“Are you decent?” he asks.

Even hums before replying. “If I say I am, will you turn around?”

Isak breathes in through his nose, and spins on his heel determined to keep his eyes on Even’s face no matter what else he might have on display. As it turns out though, it isn’t really a concern, not when Even is standing with the eiderdown wrapped around him and pulled over his head like a nun’s habit, only his bare, blueish toes visible beneath the hem.

“Feet,” says Isak without preamble, and when Even looks at him with confusion Isak steps forward and pushes gently on his shoulder until he moves back to sit on the edge of the bed. Isak scoops up two knitted socks from the heap of clothes, unmatching, of course, as usual, and slips to one knee before lifting first one foot and then the other to rest against his thigh as he pulls the socks on and rubs heat into the frigid toes.

“Well, this is a first,” mumbles Even, but he curls his toes against the warmth of Isak's palms regardless.

“Maybe for you,” huffs Isak, standing back up and tugging Even up after him. “Come on, down to the kitchen with you.”

“Like this?” Considering how little Even seemed to be concerned about his state of undress thus far, Isak is somewhat surprised to hear how small his voice becomes as he guides him towards the stairs. “But --”

“I’ll send Magnus out to the light,” Isak says without thinking about it. “Don’t worry about him. And Jonas and Mahdi are busy with our catch.”

“So it’s just us?” Even pauses on the final step, Isak just behind him, and when he looks back up at him he looks young, and sweet, and innocent in a way that makes Isak’s heart thud miserably against his ribs.

“Of course,” he says, keeps his voice low against the risk of listening ears, “only us.”

Even’s answering smile is small, but at least it doesn’t tremble anymore

\---

Magnus has managed to produce a cup of warm water flavoured with the addition of two sugar cubes, which Even sits and sips beside the fire as Isak pours pan after pan of hot water into the bath, topping it off with a bucketful from the barrel outside and testing the temperature with his elbow.

When he’s decided it’s warm enough to help, but not hot enough to shock, he beckons Even forward before turning away from the bath and holding an arm out for the eiderdown. He listens out for the hiss of displeasure as Even climbs in, then goes to hang the eiderdown over the wooden clothes horse in front of the hearth. He’s still staring at it, watching the flickering light from the fire playing off the brightly coloured patchwork, when Even clears his throat.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but do you make a habit of this?” For a second Isak’s heart jumps into his throat and freezes there, but then Even speaks again. “It seems like you know what you’re doing with -- with this sort of thing.”

“Suicidal idiots?” Isak asks, and what a world he's found himself in where  _ that _ is the preferable sin.

A pause, then Even hums lightly. “If that’s what you’d like to call it.”

“I’ll call it exactly what it is,” says Isak, then, “You asked me once what I did -- before.”

“And you never answered.”

Isak bites his lip, lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment, the memory of that night at the lamp playing out over his closed eyelids just as it has almost every night since. “I was distracted.”

“Well, don’t let me distract you now.”

“I was at university, studying medicine.” He risks a glance over his shoulder and sees Even sunk chin deep in the water, his bare, pink knees rising up like mountains over the rim of the tub. “Which, despite not being at all a popular choice at the time seems like it will serve me well stuck out here with you.”

Even’s eyes flash. “Oh, is that how it is between us now? I save your life --”

“You save --” Isak turns around fully, arms folded in defiance. “How?  _ I _ saved  _ your _ life -- if I hadn’t dragged you up here --”

“If I hadn’t caught those fish, you’d have starved.” Even sounds ridiculously smug for a man who’s crammed into a bathtub too small for a man half his size. “So you’re welcome, by the way.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to be grateful? Hva faen --”

“Why wasn’t it popular?”

“What?”

“Medicine.” Even flicks a little water over the side and they both watch the splatter it makes against the tiled floor. “It’s a noble pursuit, surely?” 

“That’s not why I chose it.”

“No?”

“No.” Isak drops into the closest chair and rests his head in his hands. “Or at least -- not really. I was interested, and capable, but I would have done anything that got me out of that house.”

“Oh, I see.”

Isak looks up to see Even’s long, pale arms hanging over the side of the tub, his chin propped between them. “Do you?”

“I was born here, you know,” Even says. “In that room where you’re sleeping. Or not sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“Oh.” Even smiles. “So yes, I understand what it might feel like -- to be trapped. To wonder what else is out there.”

Isak almost scoffs at that -- he has no reason to wonder, he's seen  _ more _ than enough -- but Even looks almost wistful, his eyes further away than Isak has ever seen them.

“But you didn’t leave, though?" he says, leaning slightly closer, head tipped to one side. "When we -- your family, you said they went to Narvik. Why didn’t you go with them?”

Even sinks back into the water, knees rising up, until Isak can only see a tuft of blonde hair and the tip of his nose.

“That’s a difficult question to answer, and a longer story than you might think.”

“Well,” Isak tilts his head to rest against his open palm. “We have time.”

“Alright.” The water splashes as Even sighs. “You first though.”

“Me first?”

“Yes. Your family.” Even sits up, exposing the long line of his neck and the sharp edges of his collarbones. “Do they know?”

“Know what?”

Two wet eyebrows flicker. “Whatever it is that drove you away.”

Isak bites at the inside of his cheek, taps his fingers against the edge of the table. There are two conversations happening here, of that he's certain, but only one it's safe to speak of out loud. 

“Toward medicine? Yes. I made no secret of the fact I wasn’t interested in following my father’s interests. Or in anything else he might have to offer.”

“And his interests are?”

“Shipping. To Germany and America, mainly.” Isak grimaces. “I don’t suppose the current situation is sitting too well with him.”

“And you weren’t interested in a life at sea?”

“I wasn’t interested in what he had to offer me,” Isak says again, then looks up to meet Even’s eyes. They’re bright and interested over his flushed cheeks, focused on Isak once more, and something inside him softens at the sight. “And I certainly didn’t have anything to offer him.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Even says. 

“Well it’s the truth as I see it at least.” Isak tries for a little smile, and is delighted when Even’s grows wider in response. “What about you, then? Why did you stay?”

“Because I love her,” he says simply. “The light. I love her, and what she stands for. She’s solid and safe and always steady. Never changeable. Never dangerous. Not like the ocean. The ocean is darker and wilder and too beautiful to look at most days, but the light?” He shakes his head, droplets flying from his too long locks. “The light is perfect. How could I leave her? Plus.” His smile grows wider. “They wouldn’t have me.”

“And I find that very difficult to believe.”

“Do you?” Even leans over the side of the bath until his chest is half out of the water, rivulets of golden firelight reflected against his collarbones and the lines of his throat. Isak swallows, tries to keep his gaze on those eyes even as they turn darker, more dangerous, more beautiful. Like the ocean, he thinks, just like the ocean. “That’s good, then. While it lasts. Could you fetch me the soap?”

Isak blinks, caught out by the swift change in subject. “Pardon?”

“Soap?” Even lifts a hand from the water and rubs it across his chest; Isak pretends not to watch the play of his fingers, the shadows like flickering kisses across his skin. “If you’re so insistent on bathing me --”

“Trying to keep you alive --”

“Then I may as well smell slightly better for it, no?” He winks, the same hopeless blink of a thing that haunts Isak’s dreams, and Isak sighs.

“No one told me I’d be playing mother.”

Even drops back into the water far enough that only his eyes are visible again. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

Isak doesn’t know if the kitchen really is that much warmer than the rest of the house, or if it’s his removal from Even’s presence that has him shivering as he makes his way back upstairs. Jonas had discovered a stash of old whale oil lamps that light the narrow dark spaces now saving the need for candles, but they throw strange shadows up against the whitewashed walls that shift and twist in the corner of his eye like so many watching ghosts.

He lets the door to Even’s room swing shut with a sigh of relief, shaking himself like a dog as he tries to pull himself together enough to actually find what he came for.

He tries the basin first, but there’s nothing there except a wooden toothbrush and a tin of tooth powder with the lid left half off, so he turns his attention to the little cabinet above. This is no tidier than the rest of the room -- it seems Isak is going to have to reconsider his previous judgement of Even as a neat and orderly person -- and contains a can of snus, a straight razor, the required bar of green, pungent soap, and five tiny brown glass bottles lined up on the bottom shelf, each of their labels smudged with use but still readable. Still achingly, horribly familiar. 

_Tincture of Opium_.

Isak picks one up, weighs it in his hands, then pulls out the little rubber stopper to give the contents an experimental sniff. In a moment he’s home, his head on his mother’s lap as she runs her fingers through his hair. He can hear the slurred hum of her voice above him, feel the sharp corners of the old leather-bound bible against his shoulder. Smell her perfume, the bitter sharpness of her brunchtime gin, and the cloying, honey-slicked scent of the laudanum over it all.

He remembers how it had burned against his own tongue, and how he’d fought and kicked and spat until she’d had her way and he was incapable of doing anything but lie on his bed and watch the ceiling crest and withdraw like the ocean.

He holds the bottle a little tighter, just for a moment, just until it’s as warm as his mother’s hand had been as she’d forced his mouth open, then puts it back with its brothers. Lets his fingertips linger on the paper labels and closes his eyes against what they represent.

Sometimes he feels like all his life has been one sickness after another. Like he himself is the disease and everyone around him only succumbs to the inevitable.

He'd hoped, though. God, he'd hoped.

One day, perhaps, he'll learn.

He closes the cabinet door, and tells his reflection, “Enough, now. Enough.”

He takes Even the soap, presses it into water wrinkled hands without meeting his eyes, then heads out into the night. He thinks he hears Even call after him, but perhaps that’s his imagination playing with him, taunting him with the thought of Even calling his name, requesting his assistance. It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. Not what Even’s smiles might mean, or why he cannot wink. Not why his laugh fills Isak with a lightness no sermon has ever managed, nor why his cabinet looks like a chemist’s display. None of it ought to matter.

Because Even is a secret Isak has no right to discover, and Isak --

He has rations to arrange. 

  
  



End file.
